Yes, there is a certain sting in some of the funeral tributes to Mikhail Gorbachev after his passing last week, particularly in discussions across the Atlantic or in the ceremonial address delivered by the German Parliament this Tuesday.
No one can dispute that the last leader of the Soviet Union made possible the unification of Germany, the emancipation of the European nations once under Moscow’s influence, and with that the cessation of the Cold War era that had stretched for decades.
Gorbachev clearly played a decisive role in trimming the Soviet Union’s colossal military budget and reducing its military footprint in various regions of what was then called the Third World, a burden that weighed heavily on the Soviet economy.
Likewise, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he assisted the United States in combating terrorism by, for instance, permitting American planes to traverse Soviet airspace on their way to Afghanistan. He also helped facilitate resolutions of conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
Few have contributed more to energizing negotiations over the limits of nuclear arsenals and the placement of medium-range missiles on European soil.
Yet how did Washington pay for it all? President Ronald Reagan, who appeared to collaborate closely with Gorbachev, could have done more to push the Soviet leader toward democratizing his vast country.
There are tasks as difficult as forging a civil society rooted in political participation and openness to the wider world, or ensuring that the republics of the former Soviet Union could coexist within a new democratic framework.
But the White House showed a willingness to weaken the Soviet economy and slow any rapprochement with Western Europe rather than embrace Gorbachev’s vision of a “common European home” spanning from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
Not only did Gorbachev fail to prevent the dissolution of the USSR, he appeared naive in trusting assurances from US Secretary of State James Baker to both him and Secretary of State Eduard Shevardnadze that NATO would not expand eastward. Those promises, sadly, did not endure.
The Atlantic Alliance ended up welcoming countries that had been part of the Warsaw Pact and even sought to extend its reach toward new neighbors, such as Georgia or Ukraine, regions with a long history of tension and competing national visions.
The dismissal of the Communist Party by Boris Yeltsin following the coup attempt against some reformists within Gorbachev’s ranks delivered a severe blow to the reformist project, which remained entangled with his leadership.
That moment crystallized the abrupt end of the Soviet era, a dissolution that Gorbachev reportedly strived to avert until the very last moment, a turning point later described by Vladimir Putin as a catastrophic geopolitical rupture.
With Gorbachev’s withdrawal from the political stage, the era of Boris Yeltsin began, marked by controversial privatizations, the redistribution of natural resources among powerful oligarchs, widespread corruption, rising inequality, and a sharp increase in poverty.
Those developments helped give rise to nationalist currents and a different political arc in Russia, one that seemed almost at odds with the reformist spirit Gorbachev had once championed. The shift reflected a country grappling with the costs of rapid and profound transition.
Certainly, Washington and Western capitals could have offered more sustained support for Gorbachev and for the democratic project in his homeland. But the historical record shows a mix of ambition, miscalculation, and the friction of competing strategic interests that shaped outcomes across Europe and beyond.